Please note: this paper contains references to sites on the Web whose areas and features have since changed. I have removed links to some of these now non-existent areas, and hope that that the textual descriptions convey enough information to the reader...

Looking @ Museums: from spectatorship to participation

Bill Curtis, 18 March 1997

Dr. Anne Balsamo, LCC6304 - Studies in Communication and Culture

Michel Foucault, The Archaeology of Knowledge

Introduction

In recent years, museums of all kinds -- art, archaeology, natural history, historical societies, technology, etc. -- have joined the constantly-evolving, informational matrix known as the World Wide Web (WWW). The sites that these museums manage vary in their use of hypermedia and network technologies, from being simply calendars and advertisements, to being sophisticated interfaces to entire collections, archives and research libraries. Whatever their form, museum sites present an institution's view of their particular collection of artifacts and associated information -- they present that institution's view of certain histories or narratives -- through the selection and presentation of artifacts and related information to their perceived audience.

In this analysis, I will attempt to articulate and contextualize the use of a website by a more traditional, modern art museum -- the High Museum of Art (HMA) in Atlanta, focusing on the relationship between the institution, with its organized collections, and the public, as reflected in the HMA's website. Then, I will discuss how this relationship fits within the larger context of contemporary views about the function of the "museum" in a postmodern society. I will describe a recent "historicizing installation" that challenges and critiques the authority of the museum, as a model for public interaction with collected artifacts. Finally, I will conclude with some suggestions for how WWW technologies could be employed to address pedagogical concerns and the challenges identified in these historicizing installations, by building a "vitalized web of community and [social] discourse" (Bolton, p.41).

Currently, the HMA website's main purpose is to present a general, high-level view of the museum's exhibition schedule, collections, education programs and other logistical information. Each of its sections exist to encourage physical attendance by the audience; They serve as information posts that describe where, when and how one can visit the physical site itself. For example, the site's "Current & Upcoming Exhibitions" and "Folk Art & Photography Galleries" sections mirror how the physical collections are organized in the two museum spaces managed by the HMA: the HMA's Main Museum in Midtown, and the HMA Georgia Pacific Center Downtown. This characteristic distinguishes the HMA site from other websites such as that of the Smithsonian Institution, whose site serves also as an extensive archive of institutional collections and resources. Likewise, the "Educational Programs" section is focused on soliciting attendance, and not on providing an interface to the collections themselves. In addition, the HMA site does not use interactive media or network technologies to facilitate interactive social communication between the institution and its audience.

I find the HMA website to be an interesting "object of study," because its embodiment in electronic media brings to the forefront a multitude of issues that are informed by recent challenges to the definition of a museum as "an official cultural center." While all art museums exist in the same space for contesting and interpreting history through artifacts, some more traditional modern art museums, such as the HMA, adhere to modernist definitions of: art as commodified expression, the "artist/producer," the "curator," and they, therefore, limit the audience to a role as spectator. This adherence is evident in the structure of their exhibitions, the organization of their education programs, and in their perceived position of authority as the "high art" museum in the Atlanta community. Furthermore, their existence within the city's premier arts center, The Woodruff Arts Center, places them in a unique position with other institutions that focus on art education (The Atlanta College of Art) and the performing arts (The Alliance and Studio Theatres). This gives them an identity that is perceived to be official, authoritative and unchallengeable within its own space. Challenges to its authority seem to be required outside of it, in what are considered to be "alternative" arts spaces. I argue that this revered position makes it more imperative that the institution move towards a more interactive model which is inclusive of the diverse perspectives held by the audience it believes itself to support.

I will use the "articulated ensemble" approach, proposed by cultural studies scholars such as Jennifer Daryl Slack and Anne Balsamo, to define and clarify how the HMA website reflects the institution's relationship to the public. My analysis is heavily informed by both my perspective as a current citizen of the Atlanta community, as well as my experience as an art student at the Atlanta College of Art. This "articulated ensemble" will be most useful in framing a discussion of challenges in postmodern museology, and options for using new media to accommodate those challenges. My analysis will begin by briefly describing the following selected properties of the HMA's embodiment on the Web:

• Devices and artifacts -- the components that make up the site;
• Forms of knowledge -- how the site is given its meaning by the institution that created it;
• Networks of human labor -- people that both "produce" and "consume" or use information contained in the site;
• Aesthetic properties -- the site's design properties;
• Cultural narratives -- the stories that are reinforced through the function of the site;
• Social relations -- the nature of the communicated interaction and the possibilities for maximizing its potential; and
• Patterns of consumption/circulation -- how the site's information is circulated and used by its audience, in addition to the meanings related to the information.

An Articulated Ensemble Analysis

Devices and artifacts

Conceptually, the HMA website is basically a marketing tool that advertises selected exhibitions, educational programs and special events; this focus is evident in the structure and sections of the site. The "General Information" section provides logistics information such as directions to the physical museum, membership benefits, and information about the museum shops and cafe. The "Exhibitions" section contains information about the HMA's featured exhibitions, which are currently: "Henri Matisse", "Highlights from the Collection," and "About Masks." Also, there is a note about "upcoming exhibitions," which, at the time of this writing are now current: "Harry Callahan" and "Alone in a Crowd" (an exhibition of prints by African-Americans). Only two of the aforementioned exhibitions have additional, hyperlinked information attached to their overview description. The "Henri Matisse" exhibition page gives information not about the artifacts it showcases, but about ticket prices, exhibition hours, general information, education programs and resources, and Matisse membership information. The "Highlights from the Collection" section is just that: it showcases only five items from the permanent collection, all of which happen to be 19th Century paintings and furnishings. There is no indication of what else is in the collection (e.g., African artifacts, etc.), or how to gain access to those other artifacts. Likewise, the "Educational Programs" section, focuses on logistics and marketing the programs; it does not attempt to use the technology to link directly with the community it intends to support, and instead provides costs and phone numbers.

Forms of knowledge

The HMA site is conceived of very narrowly: there is no attempt to use the technology for anything more than as a tool to deliver information who purpose is to encourage visits to the physical facility itself. The site delivers this basic information without really looking broadly at who might consume the information in the viewing public. Thus, the site is very cursory and selective, as one might need to be in producing a small paper brochure that would be picked up off an information table. This selectivity reflects the curatorial interests of the museum staff more than it accommodates the needs of the audience. The viewing audience for the HMA website could have many more interests in the collections and artifacts than what is allowed on this site. Later, during my review of postmodern museological issues, I will discuss how the HMA could more realistically view the needs of its audience, and use technology extend the possibilities for that audience's interaction with their collections of artifacts.

Networks of human labor

The model of how the HMA appears to work is typical of most modern art museums. First, work that is perceived to be historically important by curators, donors and administrators is purchased, curated and categorized into collections and exhibitions. Networks are formed with other museums, arts councils and endowments focused on presenting certain types of art to the communities they exist within. Exhibitions are designed by museum curators, in collaboration with others in the network, and education programs are created based on information the curators deem to be important to learning about the artifacts. Because of the community's perception of the HMA as the "high art" institution in the Atlanta area, there is a ready flow of school teachers that will bring their students to the HMA to "experience art." Corporate support is sought for these exhibitions and education programs, and this support oftentimes can influence decisions about which works are appropriate for display in the community. On the website, each major exhibition and some of the educational programs have corporate sponsorship listed next to their description, with hyperlinks to the corporate website. This is basically advertising for the corporation, and serves to associate the particular exhibition (and its particular narrative or retelling of history) with the corporate interest in drawing more consumers to them. Also, the museum gift shop reproduces key artifacts from the collections and artifacts for the viewers to carry home with them. Visitors to the website, and to the physical museum, each receive a packaged "message" that includes: the collected installed artifacts, the education program, the corporate endorsement, the tour brochures/guides, and the gifts from the museum shop. It is important to note that the website is designed by a marketing design firm, Macquarium, not by the HMA's education and outreach programs area. Because of this, any movement beyond the use of the website as an online marketing tool will be a challenge. The HMA would have to produce its website internally in order for the site to be more interactive and useful to an audience that can have many diverse interpretations of the artifacts.

Aesthetic properties

The aesthetic properties of the HMA website mirror its identity as a modernist arts institution. Architectural references to the HMA main museum, designed by modernist architect Richard Meier, are used as design devices throughout the site. These devices frame the presentation of the HMA's message in a sterile, objective format that, combined with the cursory textual descriptions composed by curatorial staff, serves to neutralize the presentation of the exhibitions. The result is that the design does not convey any contextual information about the artifacts in the exhibitions. This is a very modernist conception of the work of art in museums: that "art will express itself in an aesthetically purified, that is to say, abstract form" (Bolton, p.38). This glorification of abstraction is also evident in many of the HMA site's education programs, where children are "invited to explore color, line, shape, and texture -- the basic elements of art -- and to make their own masterpieces," and where "families will be able to create cut-paper designs and miniature stained-glass windows, inspired by Matisse's art." In many of these programs, with the exception of some that are more multicultural in flavor, there is a celebration of both stylistic motifs and universal truths that were the subject of so many modernist artists' works. These subjects carry over into the style of the website, limiting the variety of viewpoints about the work that would perhaps be culled out through a more socially-engaging and discursive focus.

Cultural narratives

The objects of reverie presented in the "Highlights from the Collection" and the "Exhibitions" sections of the site seem to project and celebrate the values and opinions of the curators and collectors who are in a particular, homogenous social strata. The language used to describe these selected objects delimits interpretation of them by presenting them as what is seen as "good art" by members of that social strata. Folk art collections, defined as art produced by "untrained" artists in local or indigenous cultures, are segregated from the main collections, enforcing a kind of distinction between work that is considered to be more universal or univocal (e.g., Matisse), and work that is more subjective (folk art). These segregations perpetuate mainstream ideologies (histories) by their continued celebration of Western art over non-Western, "high" over "low," trained over untrained artists; these dominant narratives (e.g., the subjects of Matisse's works) exist, for the most part, outside of any context that might be relevant to a child in Atlanta. Interestingly enough, the educational programs are much more expansive in the main museum exhibitions, and there are hardly any offerings beyond gallery tours for the folk art exhibitions. The museum shop typically sells reproductions of the work in the main collections, not in the folk art collections, reinforcing exhibition value and market value over the ritual value that must necessarily be determined by the visiting public.

The folk art section contains some interesting alternative and self-reflexive exhibitions. For example, an upcoming "Museum Studies" exhibition will offer "provocative insights into the way in which. . . repositories of art, artifacts, and information [museums] have shaped society's views of itself." The current "Reframing America" exhibition "examines the changes that occurred in American photography between 1936 and 1960, due in part to the influx and influence of numerous European artists and photographers who came to the United States fleeing fascism, war, and persecution." These exhibitions, often joint efforts are made with other arts and cultural institutions such as Nexus Contemporary Art Center and the Carter Center, attempt to present a more complex view of the social meanings ascribed to the collected artifacts. However, since the main educational and outreach focus is centered around the main exhibitions, the possibility of these exciting shows facilitating social dialogue between members of the community and the museum staff is minimal.

The segregation of institutionally-endorsed, commodified art work from folk or indigenous work is reminiscent of the Walter Benjamin's remarks about the work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction. While folk art is more connected temporally and spatially to experiences that audience members might relate to, art works in the main collections are distanced more from the experiences which produced them. In this space of separation, the artist as a personality becomes the object of attention and study, as opposed to understanding the complex web of circumstances from which the artist produced the work. The mass reproduction and proliferation of dominant art works in museum souvenir postcards further decays the aura of these works, removing them even more from the context of their origins, and accelerating their market value. Their heritage is liquidated through a modernist focus in universalizing their meaning, and from delimiting the means by which they may be interpreted by their audience.

Social relations

The nature of the communicated interaction made possible by the HMA website is based on a "sender-receiver" or transmission model of communication, as described by Carey. This basis reflects again the HMA's identity as an "official" cultural center, whose purpose is to transmit universal knowledge through the display of art -- a very modernist definition of the museum. As such, the HMA's website solidifies the institution's position relative to the audience, who has no role to play other than spectator. Because the educational programs take this to be their mission also, the institution generally discourages communication that is more dynamic, and that exists in a space of contestation, whereby all participants are actively engaged. On the website, there is no use of hypermedia or network technologies (such as e-mail, bulletin boards, or chat) to encourage social discussion of the collected artifacts and their meanings. This limitation mirrors the style of the physical museum itself: mass-produced knowledge and curricula are disseminated to a public in a one-way communication process. Politically, this adherence to a static model of communication mystifies the authority that the institution has over the histories contained within the artifacts. It limits the possibilities for diverse members of the community to construct their own interpretations about the relationship of the artifacts to their lived experiences.

Patterns of consumption/circulation

Considering the limited focus of the HMA website, the intended audience probably consists of people who are already museum-goers, educators, and other arts professionals with access to the Web. Since the site does not present a more comprehensive, archival interface to the collected artifacts, researchers and students are discouraged from interacting with the curators and informational resources in HMA's overall collection. This limited view of the collections, which is represented by so few artifacts and so little textual information, inhibits the possibility of attracting new participants from communities not currently involved in the institution's activities. Again, since no interactive technologies are used to facilitate dialogue between the museum staff and the community, there is a separation maintained between the two. Through the educational programs, the audience is brought into contact with the exhibits and related information, but the HMA website does not accomplish this even though it could be designed to do so.

A good example of a museum website that not only presents information about its exhibits and collections, but presents an open-ended interface to the knowledge it "owns," is the website for the Smithsonian Institution. Although the Smithsonian is distinct from the HMA in the domains it collects artifacts from, and in the scope of its collecting, they are both still museums. They differ greatly in their approach to providing information about their collected artifacts: while the Smithsonian defines itself as an educational organization and provides open access, the HMA provide almost no access to its collections outside of its "educational programs." The HMA limits the viewpoints that the audience can embrace regarding the artifacts they have collected.

Postmodern Museological Issues and the "Historicizing Installation"

Since around 1990, there has been a trend toward self-critical museum installations, which treat art objects as elements of discourse, "insisting upon the work's social, cultural and political emplacement" (Silver, p.43). In these installations, museums have invited artists to deconstruct and reconfigure their collections, presenting a commentary of sorts on the rest of the museum's historic presentations, as well as on the works of art themselves and on the histories and associations behind the artifacts. These exhibitions propose that history is a process of inquiry in which the audience is charged with interpretation, and where marginalization is revealed, bringing the political implications of curatorial decisions to the forefront. They attempt to open up history to multiple points of view that mandate audience participation.

According to Bolton, Postmodernism desires to activate art as a relevant aspect of social discourse. It accepts meaning as temporary and unstable, always contextualized and never absolute, but relational (Bolton, p. 40-41). It seeks to solve the disparity between art and social experience, which was propagated in modernist definitions of art. By pointing out the "prejudice, history and cultural belief that are present in everything we consider natural and authoritative," postmodernism attempts to engage an audience in the works of culture which are only complete through their interaction with them. In this way, history can be used as a tool to help us construct understanding of our lived relations.

One example of such a self-critical or "historicizing" installation is Fred Wilson's "Mining the Museum" installation in the Maryland Historical Society, which was co-sponsored by the The Contemporary (Museum for Contemporary Art) (1992). This collaborative effort was welcomed by the Historical Society, who was admittedly struggling to reach out to the impoverished communities that were more and more in its midst. Wilson, an African-American artist best known for his deconstructions of Western colonial ethnographic material, began his process of exploring the Historical Society's collection during a year-long residency. During this time, he searched for signs of African-American historical presence in the galleries and storage rooms, "turning up questions regarding the truthfulness, relevance, objectivity, and completeness of the 'official' American history" presented by the museum (Stoddard, p. 16). After his year-long residency, Wilson created a groundbreaking installation, combining museum artifacts and authentic appropriations with varying contextual alterations. "Speaking with an authority more reminiscent of traditional ritual than mainstream art," Wilson pointed out the lack of presence of African-Americans in the museum's historical collections, and invited the audience to participate in this search for inclusion (Stoddard, p. 17). For example, in the third-floor entrance, Wilson created a confrontational display which set the tone for the the entire exhibit.

Fred Wilson, installation view, "Mining the Museum" entrance,
Maryland Historical Society, 1992-93.

At the center of this half-finished display is an encased advertising trophy etched with the word "TRUTH." To the left of it, Wilson placed sculptural busts of "founding fathers" Andrew Jackson, Henry Clay, and Napoleon Bonaparte -- none of whom were ever Maryland residents -- on top of white marble column pedestals. To the right of the trophy, Wilson placed three empty, dark wood pedestals bearing the names of three important African-Americans who were Maryland residents: Harriet Tubman, Benjamin Banneker, and Frederick Douglass. In this and the other parts of Wilson's exhibition, historical presentation is shown to be determined by current as well as previous curatorial decisions. By returning lost elements of certain histories to the public view, Wilson demonstrated that history can expand by the inclusion of different points of view, that applying African-American perspectives to American history does not have to result in a total eclipse of that history, or even necessitate the revamping of the museum collection. "Wilson encourages viewers to look at the assumptions they bring with them, particularly regarding point of view -- of the artist, of the official historical gaze, and especially of their own -- toward racial marginalization, objects/artifacts, the function of memory, art, history, class, etc." (Stoddard, p. 19).

Conclusions

In conclusion, I wish to suggest that electronic museum spaces, such as the HMA Website, should offer expanded possibilities for engaging participants in the formation of meaning related to cultural art and artifacts. They could do so by:

• Using interactive technologies to allow audience members access to as much information about the artifacts they collect as possible. This is more like the model adopted by the Smithsonian, more like a library, where individuals can come to research their own interests and discover their own meanings.
• Altering their education programs to have them intersect with more community-based programs, facilitating dialogue between different members in an overall community.
• In their curated exhibitions, provide as much information and context as possible about both the displayed work and the artists/curators involved in installing it. Be aware of who the audience is, and what kinds of information might be particularly relevant to them.
• Be open to receiving feedback, and have an open channel available so that people can communicate with museum staff, curators and artists.

   

In accomplishing these few things, I believe that museums could play a less authoritative role in the shaping of historical meaning, instead facilitating and creating a web of discourse between members of the community about their collective memory and history as represented (or not represented) in the collections and artifacts. It would be useful to examine other electronic library or museum websites and interfaces to determine what is most relevant to audiences. Also, it is imperative for people who consider themselves to be educators (e.g., curators) to conduct articulated, contextualized analyses of how media are and can be used to further discourse. These foci could turn museums (both online and off) into liberating places, where individuals can come to be challenged to learn more about historical context, reinterpret history for themselves, and provide their own unique views to others.

Bibliography

1. Benjamin, Walter. "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction," originally published in Illuminations, translated by Harry Zohn, New York: Schocken Books, 1969.
2. Bolton, Richard. "The Modern Spectator and the Postmodern Participant," from Photo Communique, Summer 1986, pp. 34-45.
3. Carey, James W. Communication as Culture: essays on media and society, Boston: Unwin Hyman, 1989, pp. 1-68.
4. Corrin, Lisa J. "Installing History," from Atlanta Art Papers, Vol. 18, No. 4, July/August 1994, pp. 6-14.
5. Decter, Joshua. "Allegories of Cultural Criticism: re-framing the present," from Flash Art, Vol. XXVI, No. 170, May/June 1993, pp. 118-119; 128.
6. Demos, T.J. Fred Wilson: Metro Pictures Review, from New Art Examiner, Vol. 23, No. 7, March 1996.
7. Foucault, Michel. "What is an Author?", from The Foucault Reader, New York: Pantheon Books, 1984, pp. 101-120.
8. Hall, Stuart and John O'Hara. "The Narrative Construction of Reality: an interview with Stuart Hall," from Meridian: the La Trobe University English Review, Vol. 2, No. 2, October 1983.
9. McLaughlin, Margaret L. "The Art Site on the World Wide Web", from the Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, Vol. 1, No. 4, Annenberg School for Communication, University of Southern California, 1994.
10. Nichols, Bill. "The Work of Culture in the Age of Cybernetic Systems," source unknown, pp. 22-46.
11. Silver, Kenneth. "Museums: past imperfect," from Art in America, January 1993, pp. 42-47.
12. Slack, Jennifer Daryl. "Contextualizing Technology," from Rethinking Communication, Vol. 2, Paradigm Exemplars, Edited by Brenda Dervin, Lawrence Grossberg, and Stein, Judith E. "Sins of Omission," from Art in America, October 1993, pp. 110-115.
13. Stoddard, Ann B. "Redecorating the White House," from New Art Examiner, Vol. 20, No. 5, January 1993, pp. 16-20.
14. Wilson, Fred and Martha Bushkirk. Fred Wilson Interview, from October, No. 70, MIT Press: Fall 1994, pp. 109-112.

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Last modified on 28 Feb 2002.